


nowhere else

by catbeans



Series: luke*leia swap au [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, that au where luke n leia are swapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 15:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13461156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catbeans/pseuds/catbeans
Summary: “Leia, it’s a trap!”She only got around the corner in time to see Luke and Chewie herded away with a man she didn't know, a door closing behind them before she could hit the control panel to keep it open.The next hallway was empty when she got inside.She paused, holding her breath while she listened, but there were no footsteps to be heard.(Leia confronting Vader on Cloud City)





	nowhere else

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know how to do things in order lol

“Leia, it’s a trap!”

She only got around the corner in time to see Luke and Chewie herded away with a man she didn't know, a door closing behind them before she could hit the control panel to keep it open.

The next hallway was empty when she got inside.

She paused, holding her breath while she listened, but there were no footsteps to be heard.

She kept running down the hallway, through more closed doors leading to more empty rooms until she reached a dim hall full of whistling pipes and twitching pressure meters.

She didn't get the chance to get her bearings before a sliding metal door clanged shut behind her, with no control panel on that side of the wall to get it open again.

She crept further down the hall, gripping her lightsaber a little tighter when she looked up to see a wide opening in the ceiling. The floor panel beneath it dipped slightly when she took a step forward, rising up through the opening once she was standing in the center of it.

It reached the floor above it with a soft click; that room was silent, none of the hissing and clanking of pipes, no other sounds or traces of anyone but her.

She looked back, holding her lightsaber out in front of her before tentatively walking across a wide catwalk leading to a shallow flight of stairs.

Even more steam than there had been in the last room erupted from under the floor, almost too thick to see through, but she could have recognized that breathing through a cacophony.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, shifting her hands a little wider apart on the lightsaber handle and her feet into a steadier position, and a tall streak of black made its way through the steam.

“The Force is with you, young Skywalker,” the deep, mechanical voice said, “but you are not a Jedi yet.”

She lunged, jumping up the stairs two at a time, but she didn't reach Vader until his own lightsaber extended to block hers.

He knocked her back down to the platform, slicing down at her a couple times before she shifted to the side, forcing him into the defense when she charged forward at him.

The catwalk wobbled, jostling Leia off balance just enough for Vader to knock her back a few steps before she parried forward again, pushing him back farther than he had pushed her.

“You have learned much, young Jedi.”

“Shut the hell up,” she grit out, bringing her lightsaber down with enough force that she could feel the reverberations in her palm.

It threw her off just enough that her grip slipped; Vader hooked his lightsaber around hers, sending it careening down to the floor.

She didn't get the chance to look for where it fell before Vader’s lightsaber came down at her legs, almost hitting her before she rolled to the side, catching herself on the edge to tumble down after it.

Before she could stand up, her ankle barely holding her, Vader came down to meet her.

“Your destiny lies with me, Skywalker,” he said. “Obi-Wan knew this to be true.”

“Fuck you.”

Leia scrambled back a few feet, unaware of the chamber opening behind her until she crashed to the bottom.

“All too easy,” Vader said, retracting his lightsaber into the handle as steam started hissing out of the jets around Leia. “Perhaps you are not as strong as the Emperor thought.”

Leia took a deep breath, willing away the pain in her ankle to stand up just in time for the hissing to become a steady drip, bending her knees to launch herself out of the chamber just before the liquid metal began condensing around her feet.

Her arm slammed into a platform above her when she grabbed onto a hose line hanging over the edge of it, her palms stinging with the strain of holding on while Vader continued, reigniting his lightsaber.

“Impressive.”

Leia kicked herself away from the platform, swinging far enough that she could jump down without falling into the chamber between her and Vader.

She held out her arm, her own lightsaber flying straight back to her hand as Vader came around the chamber, unnervingly slow and steady like he knew he didn't have to hurry.

“Obi-Wan has taught you well,” he said, easily knocking back the first two swings Leia took at him. “You have controlled your fear, now release your anger.”

Leia paused, that split second enough for Vader to push her back another few feet before she managed to get him on the defensive again.

“Only your hatred can destroy me.”

She had enough of that to spare, but it was the egging her on that made something inside her twist, the itching suspicion that she was being played.

Whatever his plot, she had a job to do.

She swerved to the side of the next hit, her skin tingling as she somersaulted around Vader, his lightsaber passing over her by barely an inch. She swung out at him before he could turn around, knocking him over the edge of the platform and down past a tangled maze of pipes.

She slumped to the floor, the energy pushing her forward suddenly disappearing to leave her aching and exhausted as she looked over the edge.

Vader was nowhere to be seen.

She retracted her lightsaber, clipping it back onto her belt before shakily lowering herself over the edge.

The path left between the twisting pipes was silent; she ignited her lightsaber once she was steady on the floor, its blue glow the only light guiding her way.

There was another door at the end of the maze of pipes, and Leia stepped to the side as it opened, holding her lightsaber out in front of her as she tiptoed inside.

There was still no sign of Vader as she crossed through the reactor room until she got to a large window, the hiss of another door being opened before she turned to face the specter approaching through the doorway.

Leia charged.

The air bristled with electricity as their lightsabers clashed, her skin prickling and the soft hairs on the backs of her hands standing on end. She almost landed a hit when Vader held out his free hand, only ducking out of the way in time at the sound of something flying through the air towards her head.

The heavy piece of machinery ripped from behind her hit the wall, barely giving her time to slice through the next one before it could hit her. Vader stepped back, hurling chunks of metal down at her from all angles, edges and corners leaving bruises and gashes along her arms and her sides when she couldn't block all of them at once.

She held out her left hand, pushing back with all the energy she could muster, sending a block of metal almost the size of her torso flying back just before it hit her.

It crashed through the window behind her, breaking the seal and filling the room with a battering wind that threw her almost off balance.

Vader was unmoving, his cape billowing around him the only indication that the wind touched him at all.

He held out his hand, and Leia didn’t have time to block it before another piece of machinery slammed into her side and knocked her through the broken window.

She crashed down to the gantry below her, the thin rails the only thing keeping her from rolling over the edge before she retracted her lightsaber, clipping it back to her belt with a wince and a stifled grunt at the throbbing pain in her ribs.

Vader came down almost as soon as she was upright, and there was nowhere to go.

She scrambled back to put a few more feet between them, reigniting her lightsaber and bringing it crashing down against Vader's, but he kept pushing her back further, the pain in her side and her arms and everywhere else she did her best to ignore making it impossible to hold her own against him.

“You are beaten,” Vader said, pushing back against her lightsaber with enough force to knock her back, her ankle twisting out from under her. “It is useless to resist. Do not let yourself be destroyed as Obi-Wan did.”

She kicked out at his leg, taking the split second distraction to get back upright and slice down at his shoulder.

There was nothing but wires and sparks under the hole burned through his armor.

The pause it gave her was enough to let Vader charge back at her, pushing her backwards until her back hit the support rail of a control complex; she ducked under it and darted around, the tower of machinery only blocking her from Vader until he sliced through it as easily as if he was cutting through paper.

It crashed as it broke through the railings, another crash as it hit the wall of the shaft, and there wasn't another sound from it hitting the bottom.

Leia didn't get the chance to look to see if there even was one before Vader swung out at her again, her lightsaber barely catching his on its way down to her arm.

It  _ burned. _

There was nothing else but the searing pain, no mission to fail and no one to fight, nothing else in the galaxy but the  _ smell _ and the spots on her vision and the white-hot feeling of a wound that had cauterized as it was given to her.

She had to grip the end of the gantry with her remaining hand, her head spinning as she desperately scrambled back until she hit the other side of the railing.

There was nowhere else to go.

“Do not make me destroy you,” Vader said, holding out his lightsaber towards Leia's chin, smooth and sickeningly casual like he had beaten her during a practice round. “You do not yet understand your importance. Join me, and I will complete your training, and we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.”

“As if I would ever join  _ you,” _ she spat through grit teeth.

“If only you knew the power of the power of the dark side,” he said, lowering his lightsaber, a pity in his voice that made Leia's stomach twist even more than the smell of burning flesh. “Obi-Wan never told you what really happened to your father.”

“You  _ killed _ him--”

“No,” Vader interrupted. “I am your father.”

“No,” Leia said, her voice barely above a whisper. “No.”

“Search your feelings,” he said. “You know this to be true.”

“No!” she shouted, kicking against the floor to try to push herself backward, but there was still nothing but the railing and an endless fall behind her. “You're lying.”

Even as she said it, the words felt too empty for her to be right.

“Leia,” he said, taking one calm step towards her. “You can destroy the Emperor--he has foreseen this. It is your  _ destiny. _ Join me, and we can rule together. It is the only way.”

Another step forward, the lightsaber still lowered at his side.

Even through the pain and the rage and the fear, a calm resignation like the eye of a storm fell over Leia, a murderer ahead of her and a fall that could only end in death behind her; there was nowhere else to go, but  _ nowhere _ would be better than with him.

She clenched her jaw, holding her chin high, and she pushed herself backwards over the edge of the gantry without a flinch.

**Author's Note:**

> @hansolosbi!


End file.
